All Leonardo’s plans with the Air Force
Here are the objectives of Leonardo's Aircraft division on synergies with the Italian Air Force. What emerged from a recent meeting between top managers of the Leonardo group and trade unions
Leonardo aims to strengthen collaboration with the Italian Air Force to develop new business models.
This is one of the next objectives of the group's Aircraft division, as emerged – according to the indiscretions of Start Magazine – from a very recent meeting between Leonardo managers and trade unions.
At the center is the IFTS (International flight training school), born from the strategic collaboration between the Air Force (Am) and the former Finmeccanica company for the construction of an advanced flight training center. It is proposed as an international reference in the training of military pilots starting from the advanced stage of the training of those pilots subsequently employed on latest generation fighter aircraft.
Thanks to the latter, Leonardo intends to evolve from a platform provider to an integrated solution provider.
The Ifts, currently operational at the Am base in Galatina (Lecce), starting from 2022 will be progressively deployed at the Decimomannu base (Cagliari). Here last December Leonardo and Aeronautica Militare kicked off the works for the construction of a modern campus that will house the new school.
"We have shared the consolidated know-how of the Air Force and Leonardo's excellence in the field of integrated systems for training military pilots, optimizing the cost / effectiveness ratio for pilot training and strengthening the international positioning of Leonardo as Training Service Provider ” declared Alessandro Profumo , CEO of Leonardo, on that occasion .
All the details.
THE ROLE OF IFTS (INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT TRAINING SCHOOL)
The IFTS training program is based on the Air Force syllabus and concerns the pre-operational phase (also called “Phase 4”), the one that takes place before flying on the front line fighters.
Ifts can count on the advanced simulation system of the M-346 which includes the Full Mission Simulator, jointly developed by Leonardo and Cae.
The flight school can count on a fleet of 22 advanced M-346 training aircraft, an aircraft that allows simulation on board a wide range of elements, reproducing the most complex operational scenarios in an LVC – "Live" environment (aircraft in flight ), “Virtual” (ground simulators) and “Constructive” (computer generated operating scenario).
The training activities are carried out by pilot instructors of the Italian Air Force and by former military instructor pilots with extensive operational experience from the military air forces of other countries.
THE JOINT-VENTURE WITH CAE
Last March Leonardo set up a joint-venture with CAE to support Ifts activities, from technical logistical support to aircraft, to ground based training systems, up to the operational management of IFTS infrastructures.
STEPS FORWARD
For the IFTS, the Aircraft Division recalled the start of courses in Galatina (early 2021) with the continuation of courses on Decimomannu (mid 2022).
With the start of the works last December for the construction of the new Ifts campus at the Decimomannu base, a real flight academy will be created capable of hosting students, technical staff as well as recreational areas, canteen, sports facilities, logistic infrastructures. – maintenance that will have to manage the operations of the fleet of 22 M-346 aircraft (called T-346A by the Italian Air Force).
An entire building will be dedicated to the Ground Based Training System (Gbts) to house the training rooms and the installation of a modern training system based on latest generation simulation systems. The realization of these works will have positive repercussions in favor of the local induced.
Once the infrastructural adaptation has been completed, the IFTS will therefore be operational in Decimomannu starting from the second half of 2022.
LEONARDO'S M346
With the arrival of Leonardo's new M-345 at the base of the 61 ° Stormo dell'Aeronautica Militare in Galatina (Lecce), which will gradually replace the T-339A and FT-339C fleets, we will proceed with the progressive shift of the phase advanced training syllabus, based on the M-346 aircraft, at the Decimomannu base.
In fact, Leonardo's M-346 represents the spearhead of the Air Force flight training department, where in addition to the Italian pilots, those from other countries such as the United States, Spain, France, Austria, Holland have already trained. , Poland, Singapore, Argentina, Greece and Kuwait.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/leonardo-e-aeronautica-decimomannu-ifts/ on Mon, 13 Sep 2021 06:55:03 +0000.